True Love

Dearest reader,

For the past couple of months I've been thinking about what marriage means, why it matters, how it is kept and cultivated. 

I think  it matters because it's everything. And it is kept and cultivated by true love. 

What do I mean by everything? I mean that life without it is unfathomable. I can't imagine a world of individuals.  If no one married. What would a world like that look like? Feel like? I love what commitment and home-building do for two people and for those spirits they bring here.  I love how such a commitment  can help grow souls in all the divine ways. 

I have my temptations and fears. My what-if panic attacks. But I know that when I'm at my best I feel fall-on-my-knees grateful for someone who loves me even at my weakest, who blesses me at my frailest and cries and worries over me at my darkest. 

Swelling love spills out of my frame for this man who creates new, sweet life with me, who laughs and talks with me sometimes into deep, wee hours without even noticing the time pass, who tells me to forget my cellulite--that I'm stunning.  I feel privileged to wake up to tend to our babies with him, to call him home, to see him growing crow's feet on the edges of his eyes.  I love the way he says sorry, the way he sighs about how good people are and the way he tends to trees. He is truly completion to my soul. I  see how we unlock each other's potential. All of our experiences, feelings, disagreements, mistakes, make ups--all seem like colorful threads in the tapestry we are weaving together. He is my everything. 

But I don't know if that would be true without the gospel of Jesus. 

Moroni 7:45 has been a guiding star in teaching me the ways of true love. It says: 

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

I'm still marveling over these words since I read them this weekend with the context of marriage in mind. They are perfect. It is this quality and consciousness of love that makes a meaningful marriage. I've been thinking about how important it is to stay soft in spirit when I'm angry and want to clam up. Or how helpful it is to lift his burdens and put him first when I might be so tempted to pursue my own thing.

I love this quote by Elder Faust: Marriage is the joint quest for the good, the beautiful and the divine. How true.

So in the name of love, enjoy this talk by Elder Holland and these words by M. Catherine Thomas.

Heirs Together of the Grace of Life by M. Catherine Thomas

And happy five years to my beloved Marc. May there be many more to come.